Post-Incident Review and Corrective Actions

Purpose of the review

A post-incident review confirms the timeline, identifies contributing factors, checks detection and response gaps, and creates corrective actions with owners and validation. It is not a guarantee that recurrence will be prevented, and it should distinguish accountability for work from blame for an outcome.

Review agenda

1. Confirm known facts, timeline confidence, and remaining evidence gaps.
2. Describe root cause and contributing technical, process, documentation, or control factors separately.
3. Review what detection, containment, communication, and recovery actions worked or created friction.
4. Create corrective actions with an owner, due date, success evidence, dependency, and review point.

Corrective-action template

• Problem statement and supporting evidence.
• Action, accountable owner, affected service, and dependency.
• Target date, validation method, residual risk, and escalation trigger.
• Completion evidence and a follow-up review date.

Common review failures

Do not use vague actions such as "improve monitoring," close actions on ticket status alone, or collapse assumptions into root cause. Metrics can help reveal trends, but counts need scope, source, and caveats. A useful review retains unresolved questions and checks whether corrective actions actually changed the intended condition.